This month, the Alamo Drafthouse decided to celebrate the hotly anticipated, female-led-and-directed superhero film Wonder Woman with a women-only screening at their Austin location, with proceeds to be donated to Planned Parenthood. Predictably, men lost their shit. Now people are even accosting Austin’s Mayor, Steve Adler, for allowing such a travesty to go on in his city.
On Wednesday, the mayor’s office released a response to a letter they received on May 26, in which writer Richard A. Ameduri demanded that people across the world boycott the city of Austin. His message is such an astounding checklist of misogynistic misapprehensions it almost seems made up, but sadly, it’s probably not. Here’s a taste:
The theater that pandered to the sexism typical of women will, I hope, regret it’s decision. The notion of a woman hero is a fine example of women’s eagerness to accept the appearance of achievement without actual achievement. Women learn from an early age to value make-up, that it’s OK to pretend that you are greater than you actually are. Women pretend they do not know that only men serve in combat because they are content to have an easier ride. Women gladly accept gold medals at the Olympics for coming in 10th and competing only against the second class of athletes.
Pander, you say? Mayor Adler certainly recognized a great opportunity to not look like a giant asshole. Though Ameduri ends his missive by saying, “Don’t bother to respond because I am sure your cowardice will generate nothing worth reading,” Mayor Adler did respond. It doesn’t take much to sound sane next to an MRA troll, but it’s still satisfying to read:
Dear Mr. Ameduri,
I am writing to alert you that your email account has been hacked by an unfortunate and unusually hostile individual. Please remedy your account’s security right away, lest this person’s uninformed and sexist rantings give you a bad name. After all, we men have to look out for each other!
Can you imagine if someone thought that you didn’t know women could serve in our combat units now without exclusion? What if someone thought you didn’t know that women invented medical syringes, life rafts, fire escapes, central and solar heating, a war-time communications system for radio-controlling torpedoes that laid the technological foundations for everything from Wi-Fi to GPS, and beer? And I hesitate to imagine how embarrassed you’d be if someone thought you were upset that a private business was realizing a business opportunity by reserving one screening this weekend for women to see a superhero movie.
You and I are serious men of substance with little time for the delicate sensitivities displayed by the pitiful creature who maligned your good name and sterling character by writing that abysmal email. I trust the news that your email account has been hacked does not cause you undue alarm and wish you well in securing your account. And in the future, should your travels take you to Austin, please know that everyone is welcome here, even people like those who wrote that email whose views are an embarrassment to modernity, decency, and common sense.
Yours sincerely,
Steve Adler
Congrats to Mayor Adler on his viral open letter. All this talk over a couple movie screenings is ridiculous, but plenty of people are making themselves ridiculous on the wrong side of history, too:
We’ll see what happens tomorrow, June 2.
